PBS News Hour - Full Show - Russia tests NATO with increasingly aggressive tactics in Europe

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Key European leaders are sounding the alarm over Russian aggression, warning that Vladimir Putin is planning attacks aimed at testing NATO's security alliance. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses those concerns with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and two former U.S. ambassadors to NATO, Julianne Smith and Kurt Volker. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Russia's campaign of sabotage. As world leaders meet New York, key Europeans sound the alarm over Russian aggression. Warning, Vladimir Putin is planning attacks aimed at testing NATO's security alliance. Tonight, the factors fueling Europe's concerns, and the steps they and the U.S. are discussing to prevent further escalation. Coming up, I'm Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points. Across Europe, there is a chorus of concern that Russia is escalating its attacks, explosive drones at a major German airport, arson at ammunition factories and warehouses with aid to Ukraine. And the U.S. Justice Department even indicted Russian intelligence officials for allegedly conducting attacks and murders around the world. This week, leaders from Poland, France, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Finland, all warned of increasing Russian aggression.

And so in New York, at the UN General Assembly, I sat down with one of those officials, Finland's president, Alexander Stub, and I started by asking him, what is the overall Russian threat to Europe? You always have to find a balance in how you communicate it. So on one hand, there is no imminent military threat from Russia. Conventional military assault. But Russia is conducting two types of warfare. One is conventional or kinetic in Ukraine, and the other one is hybrid. And hybrid is, of course, difficult to define, but it can be a sabotage by cutting a cable.

It can be about sending a drone into the airport of Leipzig. or it can be about cyber warfare or it can be about about information war. And the problem here is that what they try to do is to destabilize and, you know, come into the minds of Europeans that we feel afraid. And I think that's very important. I say this is a fin, you need to be cool, calm and collect it and fight the right balance. And think about it more as a campaign rather than just one specific event. So what I try to warn about is that this will continue, but I also try to calm people down that, you know,

we've got this. This will continue. This will continue. this campaign, as you call it, of sabotage. Is that based on intelligence assessments, or is it also based on the assessment that Putin is bogged down in Ukraine? He has headwinds domestically, some elites are opposing the war, and therefore feels some kind of pressure to escalate. It's probably a combination. I mean, obviously, we get the intelligence, so we sort of know what might happen next. You can never defend fully. But on the other hand, it's also just basic conversations and reality, and quite often also common sense. The big problem, of course, with hybrid is that you're never going to be 100% safe.

So you're always going to go through the net somewhere. But you just need to make sure that you can pick yourself up and have a resilient society that can deal with it. Is part of the challenge now, we've seen sabotage attacks by Russia for many years. But that Leipzig airport incident in which an armed drone was found on the tarmac and another arm drone actually hit a plane as it was landing, is the assessment that somehow Russia is more willing to take on really? when it comes to these sabotage attacks, and that's the threat? Well, partially, yes. I mean, we can't always.

The problem is that, you know, in order for you to attribute, you have to be pretty sure. And I think the Germans did the right thing and then took a good measure on how to deal with it. But, you know, it's not like 100% of the cases are Russian. You know, sometimes they can be missed. Exactly. Yeah. So this is the thing. But anytime there's a hit somewhere and we get afraid, that's kind of a Russian victory.

Are they more reckless? I know, but they're probably more active. The reason I sort of call upon people and Europeans to stay calm, Russia can't fight on two fronts. It is in trouble, actually, in Ukraine. I mean, the killing ratio is one to five, one Ukrainian for five Russians. They're using copious amounts of human beings per month, you know, 30 to 35,000, and they're not able to recruit more than 27,000. So Russia is militarily in trouble,

and then they sometimes need to sort of find an alternative way to deal with it. Sometimes it's hybrid, but it's going to stay at this level. You pointed out recently, it's, quote, difficult to build a red line in Europe when it comes to Russian sabotage, right? We understand what Article 5 would be in terms of that conventional military threat you talked about, but we don't really understand, or at least not publicly, how European nations, how NATO would respond to this. What should be the threshold for when Europe responds to Russian sabotage?

It should be a common decision among the allies, what the threshold is, you know, basically after a type of an incident. And I think we've been quite vigilant. So a red line of a cyber or a hybrid attack was when an under, well, four undersea cables were cut in the Baltic Sea and the Finnish shore line. And then suddenly in NATO, they decided to go for a Baltic-centric type of an operation.

So we tried to react with the right level. But it is something that the alliance decides, first by dealing with Article 4, then bringing up to Article 5. Meaning, the need to discuss. Exactly. And I'm not, again, I just call for calm. You know, be more Finnish.

We have, you know, doubled NATO's border with Russia. We know how to deal with these things. And you just have to be, you know, vigilant but calm. Let me move to Ukraine peace talks. Recently after visiting Moscow, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and the mediator, one of the mediators with Moscow, said in Kiev that the US has no forever enemies and that in the business world, quote,

You think in terms of win-win. Is there a win-win that the West should be pursuing with Moscow? Well, I think a peace would be a win-win. And of course, a peace will always be a compromise at the end of the day. But Ukraine calls it a just peace, as you know. Yeah, and just and lasting peace. Rather than a win-win, right? That's different.

Yeah, it is different. You know, I work a lot together with the Prime Minister, Norway, Yunus Garster, in the back office, helping the Ukrainians with different types of things. We try to, you know, mediate what we best can. And of course, our take is that, you know, nationhood is based on three things, independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. And we want to make sure that these things stay intact for Ukraine.

But we're still a long way, unfortunately, from a peace. But it's good that a lot of people are working towards it. So you mentioned those three things. European officials tell me the U.S. is still insisting on this deal whereby Ukraine would have to give up. No, I disagree with that. They're not. I think, you know, after Kushner and Witkoff went to Moscow, you know, there were two takeaways.

One was that the so-called three-plus-two deal is out. Right. And that three-plus-two is, you know, going for Donbass. Right. Because that... So Russia takes the Donbass and then Ukraine gets back the three other territories in the south. And that's, you know, that deal is out of the window now. Because, you know, this year, Russia has advanced 900 square kilometers.

Ukraine has taken back 800 square kilometers. So, you know, at this pace, it would take years and years for Russia to get Donbass. So there's no point for Ukraine to give it up. And you think the U.S. is accepting this. Yes, definitely. And I also think that, you know, Ukrainian neutrality is off the table as well. And I think this is the basis that we're negotiating. Ukraine's not going to join NATO.

Well, I wish they would join NATO because, to be honest, if we're looking for a conventional deterrence for the alliance, the strongest one, we would have right now in terms of a capability to conduct modern warfare would be Ukraine. So we need to think about it in the long term. But of course, you know, an off-ramp for Putin will not be Finnish and Swedish NATO membership added by Ukrainian-NATO membership. So we have to be realistic and look at the time here. The U.S. is currently undergoing a review of its true presence in Europe.

That could lead to major reductions in numbers of troops or perhaps bases in Europe. Is the U.S. coordinating that transition? And is it in a hurry or are they patient and will manage this transition over years so that Europe can take over conventional defense? Yeah. I mean, two answers on this. Sometimes there seems to be a lot of noise around the transition. And that's kind of, you know, the public discourse about when, what and where. And of course, you know, politicians usually cause that conversation. But the other one is then the planning. And I'm very confident about the planning. You know, we are in constant conversation. with our American friends and the military about our force composure and the way in which we're doing the burden sharing, the planning. And of course the planning is based on one hand, what do you plan now, two, what do you plan in a crisis situation, and three, what do you plan long term in a war situation?

And you know, the Americans have given us very clear indications what they're not going to provide anymore. And that means that Europe has to compensate for that. And the timelines as well. And I'm confident we can do it. that. Of course, I'm from Finland and we haven't reduced the size of our military, we still have conscription and, you know, one million men and women who've done military service. You know, we just bought 64 F-35, got the two first ones this week. So, you know, we are in a good place. And I think the Americans trust our capability of holding fort when necessary.

So that's a transition for conventional defense. Of course, the US, the Trump administration as well, has pledged nuclear deterrence, the nuclear umbrella to Europe. But recently, you joined France's nuclear deterrence initiative. Do you see a day when Finland might need to rely on the French nuclear threat to deter Russia? No, that's not the plan. And I think, you know, I don't hear any change in U.S. nuclear policy in Europe. And, you know, you listen to someone like Eldridge Colby.

He's very clear. He's number three in the Pentagon, the policy chief of time. Very, very clear on this. And this is important because, of course, nuclear is a deterrent that you wish you would never have to use. Now, what we are doing is maximizing our own security. So we go into this initiative with 10 other countries with France, and each one gets a tailor-made system. It's going to take 10 to 15 years, but that nuclear weapon is in the hands of France and actually

is there to protect France. And our role is not only to get information about the French nuclear system, but also to do planning and to do training with them. And this is a deterrent, so it causes a strategic dilemma for Russia. So I think this is one of these situations. More is more, but we still rely fully on the NATO and US nuclear umbrella. But if the US nuclear umbrella is something that you trust, why even bother this nuclear Because this increases the security of Europe by and large, and it helps France to develop

their own nuclear deterrence and the way in which they plan their own system. So this is basically about taking more responsibility in Europe and creating a strategic dilemma for Russia, whereby it disincentivize. them from doing anything silly. But is the idea one day that France would extend the umbrella to the eastern flank? I don't see that happening. I mean, we have said our line is very clear. We will not have nuclear weapons on Finnish soil at peacetime.

But the reason we have done some changes in our legislation is basically to accommodate to the NATO nuclear umbrella. Let me move to artificial intelligence. This week, you let a call for a control of front-uproval. tier AI models, who was signed by 23 countries from Canada to Kenya to Turkey to Singapore. Calls for a possible international institution able to set AI standards. What does that look like? And how concerned are you that artificial intelligence will not, as your statement says,

remain under human direction, oversight and control? Okay. So what we wanted to do with this initiative was to give the so-called UN wake-up call. And we wanted to do it on three levels. The first one was to say that in order for us to control this very consequential technology, which has agency, you need, obviously, control from the companies themselves. And this is what they're talking about. But secondly, you need governance on a regional and a national level.

And thirdly, you need some kind of a global system. And this is just to kick off the debate and perhaps think about, you know, if we have a nuclear agency, should we not have an AI agency? Because I, of course, think that, you know, AI is going to change the economy, the way in which we work. It changes politics the way in which we communicate, the war, the way in which we conduct it. And then finally, it changes science in the way in which we are as human beings. And there are a lot of opportunities with AI, related to climate change, for instance, related to productivity. But there are potential threats.

So we need to kind of have a grip on this and make sure that humans are in the driver's seat. You've talked a lot about Nordic defense coordination. The European Union is talking about increasing connection to Canada, no matter what that's actually called. I wonder if we're at a moment when the U.S. is not enough, NATO is not enough, and all countries are really looking, bottom line, to diversify, for lack of a better phrase, their security umbrella. Yeah, you want to maximize your security and diversify. I'm talking about a different world order. Carnie calls at a rupture of the Prime Minister of Canada. Is that what we're seeing, that everybody needs to find. new security cooperation. Yes, we are basically seeing holy and unholy alliances coming around. And, you know, Mark and I talk a lot. He talks about a rupture.

I talk about a transition in the world order. And that's why when I spoke here at the UN, I had a strong call for multilateralism and also a rejinging of power. But Finland, you see, we did it first at home only by ourselves. But then when Russia attacked Ukraine, the Finnish public decided, okay, we need to join NATO. So that's a diversification. Then we decided, okay, we want to do a defense cooperation agreement with the United States. That's a diversification.

Then we sell 11 icebreakers to the United States. That's a diversification for the U.S. Although still in the U.S. NATO-Bast. Yeah, exactly. And then we start, I talk a lot about the global south. So I believe in cooperation with countries from the global south. And what you're seeing Europe doing now is diversifying and hedging. So it does a deal with free trade deal with India.

as a free trade deal with Mercosur in Latin America. So you start seeing a lot of these alliances shifting because of the way in which the United States is conducting its foreign policy right now, which is very much America first, which is very much making America great again. And, you know, I talk about values based realism. And my realism means that, you know,

I deal with the world as it is, not as I would wish it to be. I, of course, want to make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and the United States stays very engaged in Europe. Alex Stubb, President of Finland. Thank you very much. Thank you. And to discuss my interview with President Stubb and the overall Russian threat to Europe,

I'm joined by two former U.S. ambassadors to NATO. Julie Smith served during the Biden administration and Kurt Volker during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and was also a special envoy for Ukraine negotiations during the First Trump administration. Thanks very much to both you. Thanks, welcome. Julie, you told my colleague this week this, that Russia is no longer operating with these sabotage attacks in Europe, with plausible deniability.

What does that mean? Well, look, the Russians have been using these types of tactics, hybrid tactics, we call them, you know, cyber attacks, cutting undersea cables for decades. And the secret sauce, the way that they like to pursue these types of attacks, is that they want to be able to deny them. In every case, plausible deniability sits at the core of what they're doing. I think what's changed over the last two years or so, and particularly over the recent months, is that they're pivoting now to undeniable attacks towards NATO allies, not conventional attacks.

We don't have any tanks rolling across borders. But these types of hybrid incidents are becoming more and more undeniable that Russia, Moscow, is responsible. They're still using proxies occasionally to burn down weapons depot. or a drone factory. But we just had last week a Russian vessel fire flares off towards the Danish helicopter. That's pretty undeniable. And publicly Putin praised them, although I'm told privately some other things happen. But, Kurt, how large is the threat?

What can happen from these sabotage attacks? And let me listen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio first and see what he says about that. One of the concerns we have, among many, about the war between Russia and Ukraine, is that could metastasize and spread into other places, that it could grow into somewhere else, be it through a hybrid attack, be it through a sabotage attack, be it through a misunderstanding.

You know, some pilot went the wrong way and all of a sudden you've got active combat. I mean, the way he says it, there's pretty big risks, even just from these sabotage attacks. Well, he was talking about the war, Russia's war against Ukraine, expanding into a wider war. The hybrid attacks, as Julie just said, you know,

they're intentional, they're not masked anymore, and they're increasing. Why? Because there's no pushback. They see it. We all see it. We don't do anything. And so they do it again. And they escalate the next time. And they see where that goes. The Germans, after the Leipzig attack, after those armed drones on the airport. They threw out their portural center, right? Well, they told me that they kicked out an entire consulate, which was half intelligence agents. I'm saying, but you're saying that's not enough. That's not a big deal. It's not cost imposition. I mean, NATO is reacting in real time. It's better at detection, forensics, attribution, all of those things are getting better, but they're not imposing

cause. There's no action. And that's what the Russians are testing to see, do we act? The purpose of this is to back us off. They are losing Ukraine. They are losing in Ukraine, and they know it. As Stubb just said, you know, they can't get the soldiers on the battlefield. When they do, they've got two weeks of training and they get killed or captured right away. They are hitting Ukrainian cities every day and every night, but that's not making any strategic difference. And meanwhile, Ukraine is making a very big strategic difference, hitting their oil refining, their oil export, their military logistics. This is bad news for Russia. What are the options for NATO countries? What's the options for Brussels and how to hit back

again? It's not conventional tanks rolling across the border, right? These are, at least Russia denies them. These are attacks in the gray zones. Well, I just want to comment on Marco before Julie jumps in. But If Rubio is concerned about this war metastasizing, then we should stop it. Okay? That should be the lesson. He says he's trying. No, no, we're not trying.

This war is happening because Vladimir Putin has decided to try to take over Ukraine and subjugated as part of a Russian empire. He's not going to stop. So we have to stop him. And Ukraine is leading the edge here. They are ready to do this. They need support. And we could have ended this three years ago. We could have ended it two years ago.

We should still do it now, especially if we're worried about it getting bigger. Julie, options for NATO on how to respond to hybrid attacks? Let's be honest about this. NATO is not the institution to impose sanctions, honest about the fact that the alliance cannot expel diplomats or intelligence officers. That has to be done in capitals, right? And that's getting a little better, but needs to go a lot further. But NATO as an institution needs to shift from looking at these case-by-case. and as individual incidents and start looking at it in the aggregate

and coming up with a cost imposition plan. So you could go after the shadow fleet. You can look at offensive cyber operations. The fleet that Russia uses to try and export. Right, exactly. So there are ways in which the alliance can impose costs, but you would need the alliance's largest and most powerful member, the United States, to get in the game and lead those efforts.

and I'm sorry to say that right now, we have a United States that is not leading on this issue, leading on defense spending, leading on the defense industrial base, absolutely, not as much in the hybrid space. And so I feel that NATO right now has its hands tied on this. Is there also, I mean, President Stubb and I talked about this, that the European leaders especially have decided there should not be a red line on hybrid attacks because they don't want Russia to know what the red line is. But doesn't that prevent you from having a playbook? Right, it does.

We need to adopt completely the opposite approach. This should be graffiti on the New York subway. No. In red. Here's your red lines. Right. What does that mean? Well, that means that you zero tolerance.

You can't do that and get away with it. We will impose a cost, just as Julie said. The name of the game for NATO for 75 years has been deterrence. That you don't actually fight a war. you don't have a strategic confrontation with the Soviet Union or now Russia because they know it would be too costly. So we are good at deterrence when it comes to tanks rolling across the border, as you said. We are doing zero on deterrence when it comes to these hybrid attacks.

But what is too costly when it comes to, I don't know, a warehouse being set on fire? Yeah, I think this is a conversation to be had at NATO, but I think we have to actually impose direct costs on Russia for the things that they do. And they need to know that that's happening. You know, it's funny because for years, NATO has said a hybrid attack, a cyber attack could trickle Article 5. But we'll just look on a case-by-case basis. And what it leads to is the conclusion that we'll know it when we see it. And so I fear that what the alliance is doing is waiting for some catastrophic tragedy.

And that's the wrong way to go here. I'm with Kurt. Let's stop it now. show Putin that there are costs now for even incidents that don't lead to catastrophic loss of life. Why wait for a greater tragedy? Because I believe that Putin's risk calculus has changed. He's taking more risks. And as he does so, there's the risk that one of these is going to go awry, and people are going to lose their lives.

We've only got a little time left. So I want to ask quickly about what President Stubb said at the end to me, this idea of countries looking around. diversifying their umbrellas, as he put it holy and unholy alliances. Set aside what that means. But, Kurt, what does that mean for Europe's trust in the United States? And from NATO's perspective, is that okay? So first off, I think I understood what he meant now that I heard him say it.

A holy alliance in what he's saying is we share the same values. We're a community. Unholy, we may have interests that we share. with someone that doesn't share our values and we can work together. So that's what I think he's getting at. As far as Europe's trust in the United States, look, they are very unhappy with President Trump. They also know that the United States is a very big country with a lot of people and the shared values with Europe, and we are destined to be together.

So they're frustrated. It's not easy to work with the United States right now, but they don't have any better option, and they will do so. All right. Julie, quickly, you want to just jump in very quick. We're going to disagree. I think there is a trust deficit, and I think countries are looking for other sets of relationships. Doesn't mean they're getting rid of their relationship with the United States, but they're hedging. And I worry that some countries are going to hedge and look towards China or Russia, and that's where I get worried. We'll have to leave it there.

Julie Smith, Kurt Bolker. Thank you very much. That's all the time we have for now. Thank you at home for joining us. I'm Nick Schiff, and we'll see you again next week on Compass Points.